Taipei, Nov. 13 (CNA) Taiwan enjoyed a five-run sixth inning explosion en route to a 10-0 victory over Panama Tuesday to clinch a quarterfinal berth in the Baseball World Cup.
Cuba, Australia and the U.S. also secured places in the next round.
With one game left to play in the preliminary round, Taiwan advances to the final eight with a 5-1 record and will meet the U.S., which advanced with an identical record after beating South Africa 4-2, in its last Group A game Wednesday.
Defending champion Cuba beat Thailand 11-1 to lead Group B and remains the only undefeated team in the tournament. Australia also advanced with a 4-2 win over Germany.
Taiwan finally woke from its offensive slump with four hits from Chen Chin-feng, Liao Ying-chieh, Lin Chih-sheng and Cheng Chao-hang, and taking advantage of Panama's two defensive errors to score five runs at the top of the sixth inning to boost the score to 8-0.
Peng Chen-min, who had three of Taiwan's 10 hits, had two RBI singles in the second and the fifth inning as Taiwan took a 3-0 lead into the sixth. His RBI double in the top of the eighth inning led to the ninth run of the game.
Hsieh Chia-hsien added a solo home run, his third home run of the tournament, in the top of the ninth inning.
Seven Panamanian pitchers combined for eight walks in the game.
The top four teams from Group A and B advance to the single elimination quarterfinal round of the biennial tournament, which runs through to Nov. 18 with games being played in four baseball stadiums in Taipei and Taichung.